Thalias
by Zafara-FanFictions
Summary: Ruki Stormbourne is a night elf huntress that reigns from Ashenvale. Join her and her pet dragon on her raise from simple villager to Champion of Azeroth
1. Prologue

There comes a time in every young person's life when they get a sense of their destiny. It takes hold of their soul and whisks them away on a journey.

Deep in the forests of Ashenvale, a herd of large deer could be heard thundering in the moonlight. The tree tops above them rustled as a young night elf woman jumped from branch to branch, spying on the herd as it moved. Her goal was not to hunt down the creatures, only to track them. That herd was the life force of a tiny village nestled in the hills above them. After the herd settled for the night, the night elf retied her silver hair and headed back home.

In her cottage near the center of the village, she fastened the door tight for the night and went to slump over on her bedroll. Instead of laying on soft furs, she laid on a large, oval object. Startled, she flipped over and object rolled across the floor until it was caught in the moonlight. The object in question was blue but shimmered a deep violet in color. The night elf crawled towards it and placed her hands on it. It was smooth and warm to the touch. As her hands stayed on it it started to burn. Wincing, she found herself unable to remove her hands from the object. The pain grew unbearable as she heard a faint voice whispering a foreign language in her ear. As the chanting grew louder, the room started to swirl and she started to sway back and forth until she was consumed by darkness and she slumped over with a loud thump on the oaken floor.


	2. The Vision

_Ruki ...  
Hey wake up... _

**"WAKE UP RUKI!"**

The young night elf woman awoke in a scream, her chest heaving as her eyes darted about the room. Her vision was blurred from sleep but she blinked rapidly she glanced up to see her little sister standing over her.

The young night elf in question was the middle Stormcrow sister, Dahlina. She had deep blue hair and eyes as white and smooth as opals. Her red-violet skin was littered with scarring from getting into one two many fights with the other warriors in training. "'Bout time you woke up! You were speakin' in tongues or somethin'! Did you drink the water from the moonwell again?

The older night elf hissed as she shoved her sister off of her and sat up as the teenager hit the floor rump-first. She pushed herself to her feet and made her way to her sparse wardrobe. Most of the clothes in her wardrobe were just white blouses and charcoal colored pants but that didn't bother her. As the adult night elf reached for a shirt the teenager jumped on her back, draping her arms around her older sister's neck. "So are you gonna wear the white one, the slightly offwhite one, or the light beige one?" the little sister chortled as the older one grunted. Ruki sighed heavily. "You are the biggest thorn in my side... and speaking of thorns."

The sound of heavy paws thumped through the hut on the wooden floor as a massive white nightsaber sleepily made her way to the bedroom. The feline's fur was a brilliant white covered in black strips with dazzling sapphire eyes. She had a pair large pearly fangs that protruded from her upper jaw.

"Ah, there's my vicious little killer." Ruki teased. "Kimba, sick 'em!"

The nightsaber grabbed young Dahlina by the seat of her pants and pulled her to the floor with ease. The cat placed a massive paw on the young girl's chest to pin her down and then proceeded to groom her-her sandpaper tongue starting from the bottom of her chin and making her way up through her tied-back hair, going over her mouth, nose, and eyes.

"Blek!" the teenager called out in disgust. "So gross!" No matter how much the teenager protested the the nightsaber female had decided that it was grooming time for the little night elf.

"Yeah so vicious, you blood thirsty animal. Someone should really put you down." Ruki chuckled as she readied herself for the day. Instead of brushing her long white hair she just ran her fingers through it and then tied it back and slid on a pair of chestnut brown leather boots.

The teenage night elf managed to shove the nightsaber off of her and rose to feet. "Ruki, Papa wanted to talk to you about something-didn't say what because he said I'd 'butcher it with my attitude'. Pfft," the teenager scoffed, resting one hand on her hip. "I'll meet you over there in a min, slowpoke!" the night elf girl hopped out an open window with ease, which was probably how she snuck herself into her older sister's bedroom in the first place.

Ruki sighed as she shut the window and latched it. She couldn't help as she cracked a smile and chuckled to herself. "She's just like me... Elune help us all." As she made her way to the doorway of the bedroom she stopped at the doorframe, using it to prop herself up as her head pounded and ears rang. "Wha- wha-?" her vision was fading and flashing shades of blues, purples, and reds as an unfamiliar voice in an unfamiliar tongue boomed through her mind. As she collapsed into the floor and faded to black one more small child-like voice called out to her.


	3. Fever Dream

_Thunder boomed in a foreign cliffside as a cloaked figure sprinted through the rain. The sound of barking hounds drove the feminine figure to keep going, clutching something tightly to her chest. Blinded by the rain stinging her face she almost toppled over and she turned in a panic to see the hounds chasing her start to circle her. The feminine figure peered out from under her hood-amber eyes glowing from underneath. She hissed at the hounds in a foreign tongue as the rains swirled around her and and her humanoid figure twisted into a large dragon. Too heated from her transformation she didn't notice as her prize toppled down the cliff as she let out a snarl that rang out through the air like thunder as sparks started to form at the corners of her maw._

The night elf woman was awoken by a flash of lightning that only she saw. Ruki clutched her head due to a sudden throbbing pain at her temple.

An older night elf male passed through the curtains with a wooden bowl. He peered down at the woman before him and smiled. "My daughter," he smiled, clutching a wooden bowl in his hands as he knelt down. He held the bowl to her lips and ordered her to drink. "It'll be bitter... but it's an old sailor trick to help headaches go away." Tyrendas Stromcrow was a weathered old elf. His deep blue hair streaked with silver and his pale yellow eyes peered over glasses as his daughter sipped from the bowl he was offering to her. His dark skin was tanned and littered with scars from his sailing days of Suramar that had long since passed.

Ruki made a sour face as the liquid in the bowl touched her lips but drank anyways. Surely enough the roaring pain banging around in her skull started to dull as she was able to take the bowl from her father. She tilted it backwards to chug it back, the liquid dribbling down her chin and spilling on her white blouse but she powered through it. She finished her drink with as gasp and set the bowl down, wiping the excess liquid off her chin with the sleeve of her blouse. "Thanks," she sighed, still in pain from her collapse but not entirely weakened.

"You took quite the spill," Tyrendas stood, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pipe. He stuffed it with a mixture of dried herbs and lit it, sitting back in an old wooden rocking chair to puff on it. "I'm surprised Dahlina managed to drag you all the way here herself." He used his leg to push his weight around to make the chair begin to rock gently. He closed his eyes and smiled to himself.

Ruki's nose twitched at the smell of burning herbs as she sat cross-legged on the floor facing her father. "You're thinking about her again, aren't you?"

The elder night elf nodded, eyes still closed as his brow wrinkled. "I think about her all the time, my child. Sometimes I can still smell her perfume... Starlight Rose petals that were soaked in mana from the Moonwell." Tyrendas' face dropped as his rocking slowed. He softly chuckled to himself. His eyes peering over the rims of his glasses at his daughter and smiled. "You and Zhafara look so much like her... she'd be so proud of her daughters." Pain was heavy in his voice as he wiped a tear from his eye. "Sometimes I wish I was the one that stayed behind..."

"Father, don't say that. Mother knew what she was doing." Ruki's tone grew stern out of love. "Like you say everything is suppose to happen to us for a reason. The boiling water that softens a carrot-"

"-Hardens the egg." Tyrdenas chuckled, taking another puff from his pipe and blowing a ring of smoke from the corner of his mouth. "You're stubborn like her too, but I suppose that isn't such a bad thing." The male elf leaned farther back in his chair and closed his eyes, slowly releasing smoke from his nose like a sleeping dragon. "How does your head feel, child?"

"Better... I think? What was that stuff you gave me anyways?"

"Fermented Moonwell Water," the old elf chuckled. "Not only does drinking too much of it make your face feel warm but it can smack the pain out of almost anything." Tyrendas sat straight in his chair and looked towards a lockbox on his dresser. He looked back at his daughter and smiled. "Ruki, my beloved," he stood up with assistance from his chair and made his way over to his daughter. He offered the young woman a hand and helped her to her feet. "There is something I've been meaning to give you for a long time. Your mother would be cross for having it sit in this box for hundreds of years." With his daughters hand in his, he made his way to the box and waved a hand over it. His spoke in Old Darnassian as his fingers sparked and the box flicked open.

Inside was a bow. It looked fairly ordinary. It was carved from a blackened wood with ornate carvings and silver plating covering where ones hand should rest and the tips. Hippogryff feathers adorned it and lay gathered around them. Tyrendas motioned for Ruki to pick it up as the young woman reached for it. The bow sparked to life in her hands as her fingers touched it. It grew warm in her hands as the occasional flick of lighting sparked from the feathers as they now swayed in the breeze of an open window.

"Your mother called it Stormbringer." Tyrendas nodded, taking a long drag from his pipe. "She claims she won it in a drinking game against a vrykul but she was known for spinning quite the yarn." The old elf smiled at his daughter. "That bow holds power I know you can wield. Let the arrows sing through the wind towards your foes, and I know your mother will be with you."

Ruki nodded, overwhelmed by emotion from her father's gift. "Thank you... I'll make mother proud that I'm wielding the Stormbringer."

Tyrendas smiled, nodding slightly. "Oh my child, you and your sisters make her proud with every breath you draw in her honor."


	4. Friend

Ruki hadn't felt this free in weeks. The headaches and fainting spells that had plagued her had vanished as quickly and mysteriously as they appeared. Running along the forest floor, ivory hair whipping behind her and the leaves and twigs crumpling under her bare feet, the Kaldorei woman was on the trail of a stag she had injured. The adrenaline from her hunt surged through her veins as the hoof prints become more frequent and what started as specks of blood pooled into small puddles of crimson gore that shimmered in the moonlight.

 _The beast is slowing. Good. The sooner I find him the sooner your pain will end._ Ruki slowed her paced from full sprint to a light walk as she absorbed the scene around her. The noise of insects and smaller mamma's echoed in the cool night air as she glanced around. _The brush his trampled here. He came this way... yes... this tree has a blood smear on it._ The night elf tightened her grip on her bow. She crept through the thick brush and finally found her prey.

The poor stag, with an arrow lodged in his shoulder, drawing in labored breaths as he cried out in pain and confusion.

Ruki's face soften as she drew back her bow. She whispered a soft prayer to Elune. Her fingers were just about to release her merciful arrow when-

 _FWIP!_

Ruki's face lit up in horror. Another arrow soared through the night from her left and pierced her prey in the neck. As the beast toppled to the ground as soft gasp escaped the night elf as she clambered up a tree. Peering down at the forest floor before her, an amber light shimmered against the dark. Two strangers appeared, in shining armor that was too bulky to be elven. Her brows scrunched up as one of the strangers stuck a torch in the ground. They spoke in a strange tongue, nothing like Ruki had ever heard before.

One of the strangers removed their helmet. Ruki almost choked in surprised. The stranger in her best guess, appeared to be male. He had hair as yellow as the flame next to him, eyes that matched the color of honey and skin as white as sand. His ears were so small and rounded off instead of coming to a point. Whatever he was, he wasn't elven or a greenskin. He let out a sharp laugh, a scar on his lip tugging upwards in a smirk, as he clapped the back of the bowman who had stolen her kill. The other stranger kept their identity hidden, Ruki's arrow twirling in their fingers as they turned to the male. They talked back and forth in their strange tongue, looking at the elven arrow as if admiring the craftsmanship. Ruki watched as the bowman place her arrow in their quiver and knelt to start dressing their kill, barking something at the other one as they worked.

The paleskin grasped his weapon and his eyes darted nervously in the dark, as if something was going to leap out at him. Ruki slowly had made her way out of the tree, trying her best to avoid the light of the his torch. With the two paleskins holding her attention, the elf has misplaced her footing and slipped, scoffing the bark with her book and snapping a tree. The paleskin on guard froze, his eyes locking in the direction of the noise. His voice was shaky, he was terrified. The other paleskin made a wave-like gesture with his hand and grunted and continued working.

Ruki held her breath as she watched the standing paleskin turn and start to approach the tall brush she was crouching in. Her nerves knotted themselves in her gut as a terrible realization settled there. _My eyes._

A night elf's eyes shimmer in the moonlight, almost like they're glowing. The point of the paleskin's weapon poked her in the nose but he stayed in his postition, he appeared brave in the face-brow scrunched and lips pursed in a scowl, but the elf could hear his heart thumping in his chest and see the vein pulsing in his neck. He barked something. She had been caught.

Ruki's fear settled as she rose to her feet, she was several heads taller then the paleskin and at that height he wasn't stop intimidating. The paleskin's weapon landed on the grass with a thud as he backed away from her. She tilted her hand as he chanted a short rash syllable repeatedly.

"No?" Ruki tried the word in their tongue. It felt strange, but it seemed to calm the panicking paleskin. "Who are you? What are you?"

The paleskin's chest heaved as he shook his head, her language having no meaning to him. The elf scrunched her brow at the paleskin. She was frustrated but peering past the frightened paleskin in front of her, she took note that his ally had fled into the woods as soon as she appeared from the brush.

The paleskin turned his head, snarling in his language as he balled his fists and paced the forest in small circles in front of the pair, his hands tangling in his yellow hair. One word in his rant stuck out to Ruki, so she tried it on.

"Lost?"

This caused the paleskin to freeze, looking up at the Kaldorei in wonder. He asked her something, but Ruki didn't understand and made it clear with a shake of her head. The paleskin bit his lip, eyes to the ground in thought.

Why was this stranger so quick to let his guard down around her, he didn't know her. She could have been hostile. Hell, she had his weapon there at her feet, along with her bow. Though the paleskin seemed to trust her. Apparently "no" meant something in their language.

The paleskin then thumped his chest. "Cole," he said it loud and clear. He repeated the gesture and repeated the word again. "Cole."

Ruki tilted her head, wrapping her mind around the word. Was he called Cole? Was Cole the name of his people? Ruki had glanced up, deciding that a people named Cole was dumber than one paleskin named Cole. She mimicked his gesture, patting herself on the chest. "Ruki."

The paleskin, apparently named Cole, smiled and laughed. He seemed overjoyed.

Ruki couldn't help it but to smile to. She was communicating with a new people, and these paleskins seemed a lot more tolerant than the greenskins she had encountered. The elf closed the distance between herself and the paleskin. She looked down at him quizzically. _Why is his face turning that color? Why is it turning red? Is he sick?_

The paleskin shuffled uncomfortably as he rubbed the nape of his neck. His honey-colored eyes made contact with hers and his face grew darker.

 _These paleskins are so queer._ Ruki chuckled as she too found herself relaxing. The peaceful aura shattered when her ears twitched at the sound of heavy panting from the darkness. She glanced into the darkness then back at the small paleskin male in front of her. _Is that a-_

Without warning a male greenskin burst out of the darkness, screaming in his terrible, harsh language as he swung his ax at the paleskin. Ruki snarled and leapt into the air, she grabbed the greenskin's arm while airborne and twisted it. Her wieght on his arm and landing on the ground caused the greenskin to fumble to the ground, his ax sliding in the grass. The greenskin roared and balled his fist, connecting to to Ruki's jaw and slammed her into the ground.

The paleskin grabbed his weapon and drew it backwards in a charge at the heaving greenskin.

Seeing stars, Ruki had glanced up and gasped as she watched the greenskin grab the paleskin by the neck. She knew how strong greenskins were. It was killing him. Rising to her feet, the night elf removed her dagger from her hip and snarled. She lunged for the greenskin and plunged the dagger into his neck.

The greenskin wheezed and dropped the paleskin male, who had scurried away and started to unbuckle his crushed neck and chest piece for air. Green blood spurted from the knife wound as he swung violently at the elf.

She sneered and flipped on her foot, kicking the dagger deeper into the greenskin's neck. Her boot skipped off the hilt of her blade and connected with his jaw, sending the greenskin crashing into the forest floor.

With a cry from the paleskin, free from his damaged armor, he plunched his weapon into the greenskin's back, through his heart. And with a dying gasp the greenskin finally slumped into a ball on the ground.

The paleskin looked up at her, his chest heaving as sweat drenched his yellow hair and face as he tugged his blade free. He knelt down and ripped the dagger from the greenskin's neck. He admired it briefly before spinning it in his fingers, offering the hilt to his newfound ally. "Friend," his voice was labored but he shook his head. As if trying to tell her that his word was a good thing.

"Friend." She repeated, and she matched the smile that crept onto his face.


End file.
